My Inspiration/Craft Room Makeover Reveal

I’m so excited to finally share my inspiration/craft room makeover. It’s been a ton of work, much more than I expected actually because each new project seemed to cause another one. Not sure how that always happens, lol, but I’m so pleased with the final result. It’s so me!!

When I first posted the before photos of my craft room w-a-a-a-y back at the beginning of October I wrote that I was going to decorate it with no fear, with the little girl inside me as my main creative consultant. Well, I think I listened to her… at least I hope I did. This is a room where I spend a lot of my time and I wanted it to be warm and pretty! A fun place to be. Happified and girlified!!

Some of the projects in this room have already been posted, and I’ll have links to those posts if you’re interested in checking them out. A few projects will be shown in more detail in future posts.

I’m proud to say that almost everything in this room has been thrifted, reused, upcycled, repurposed, or was a gift. The only things that I can think of that were purchased new are the MDF that I used for the shelving unit I built, my computer equipment, and a couple of small things that I’ll mention along the way.

So, I’m finally ready to welcome you to my new inspiration/craft room. Come right in. I’m so happy you’re here.

 

This roses & ribbons mirror that I made over into a chalkboard hangs on my craft room door, and it immediately inspires me when I enter. It was originally an awful gold, and you can find that post here.

I really wanted to do this room in pink and green. The green on the walls is Beauti-Tone’s ‘Soothing’. I’m a girl who loves and needs colour, and I’ve always wanted a pink room. Well I didn’t do a totally pink room, but I definitely got the hit of pink that I wanted. You’ll see what I mean in a minute.

I don’t decorate every room in my house to match. I want each room to have its own personality. I tie them all together by using the same white on the trim, which is Benjamin Moore’s Cloud White. It’s a warm white that isn’t too in-your-face white. I also think that every room can use touches of black. For me, black always seems to ground any colour scheme.

 

Over my craft room desk I have all my thrifted boxes and other misc containers that I use to store the things I use most often. Also, I have my weigh scale handy because I sell on ebay, and need to weigh things for shipping. On the top shelf are a few future projects.

My pink boxes were a makeover of some dollar store boxes that I already had, and you can find that post here. The cherub container was also a makeover, and that post can be found here.

Now that my computer has it’s new home that you’ll see below I have all this desk space to work on my projects. This is a luxury that I’ve never had before, and I’m so enjoying it. My desk makeover post can be found here. The paint supplies caddy that was made from a wine caddy can be found here.

The pink afghan on my black office chair was thrifted at a Salvation Army store this past Black Friday for half price, so it cost a whopping $1.50. It’s so warm and cozy.

 

Paris continues to inspire me, so I have a frame here with some artistic postcards that I can often be found staring at while daydreaming of being back in Paris and walking down the lovely city streets.

Above that is my lazy susan tray that I repurposed into a clock by painting the leaves and roses. That post can be found here.

 

Here’s my hit of pink… my fabulous pink ceiling! It’s absolutely pinkalicious!! The colour is Beauti-tone’s ‘Moulin Rouge’, and I cannot even tell you how much I love it. I know it’s not for everybody, but it’s definitely for me. This small room (8 1/2′ x 11′) has a 9 1/2′ ceiling and the pink helps to keep it feeling warm, especially now that winter is coming and the fall has been mostly cold and damp. I’ll be sharing how I made the border at the ceiling in a future post. It was so easy!

 

The lamp on my desk was made over by colouring the lampshade with highlighters, and you can find that post here.

You can just see the digital photo frame on my desk here. John gave that to me last Christmas, and it holds over 200 photos of our trip to Paris in the spring of 2011. I have it on most of the time when I’m working at my desk. It’s amazing how much it relaxes me and makes me smile.

I did some decoupage on the side of my computer armoire, and framed the small poster beside it in an unusual way, and I’ll be sharing both these projects in future posts.

 

I repurposed an old pine wardrobe into a computer armoire by first turning it upside down and then giving it a complete makeover. I keep all the nasties in there, such as bills, office supplies, computer equipment etc. The post for this makeover can be found here.

 

The insides of the doors are fabric covered bulletin boards and I painted the insets on the fronts of the doors with chalkboard paint, and I simply wrote four words on them that remind me to aspire to live a creative life.

I read that Pablo Picasso was quoted as saying that  “every child is born an artist, it’s remaining an artist when you grow up that’s difficult”. I’m probably paraphrasing, but I sooo get what he meant.

 

Here’s another view of my pinkified ceiling.

 

I have clipped photos to my chicken wire inspiration board with thrifted clip on earrings. There are a couple black and whites from my childhood, a few of our trip to Paris, a Paris handkerchief, and one of my prized possessions – the framed postcard that my father sent me from Paris in August of 1985 when he went there on a business trip.

 

The frame I used to make my inspiration board originally held a needlepoint. See how I transformed it here.

 

Behind my chair I reused a small bookcase to hold my phone and CD player. I’m still looking for a new phone for this room. I’d love to find a vintage black rotary dial phone. That would be so cool! The doors of the bookcase face the entry to the room, and inside are tools and paint supplies.

You can see the painted floor in the above photo. I primed it and so far it’s received one coat of Beauti-Tone’s ‘So So Sweet’ paint. It’s now waiting until the new year for its second coat, and then I’ll be giving it a paint treatment. It’s been a long time since I’ve painted a floor and I’m really looking forward to giving this old wooden floor a whole new look.

 

This shoe organizer that I got at Wal Mart holds spray paints and other paint supplies. It’s such an easy way to organize them, and the colour fits perfectly, My closet is still a bit of a mess, but I’m allowing myself that. It holds all kinds of future projects.

 

For my window treatments I lucked out by finding a bag of metal curtain clips and finials at the thrift store for $1. Strangely enough there were only three finials, which is exactly what I needed because the closet side of this window doesn’t have room for a finial. They were a heavy bronze colour so I spray painted them white.

The curtain rods are actually broom handles that I got at the dollar store. They come in all kinds of fun colours and patterns.

 

This window’s curtain is a twin chenille bedspread, with a lovely white on white floral pattern, that I thrifted for $4. I didn’t even cut it. I just folded it over to make it the length I wanted and hung it on the clips. So easy, and I love it. The pink thrifted boa is just a touch of fun, and it reminds me not to take myself too seriously.

I’m very proud of this bookcase unit that I built out of MDF. I have so much more storage now, and I was was able to move my craft, decorating, and DIY books out of John’s office and into my craft room where they belong. He’s happy too because this gives him some much needed extra space. This piece is 8′ tall and about 50″ wide. I’ll be sharing how I built this in a future post.

This bookcase holds all kinds of craft supplies, fabrics, and future projects. I hung a $3 thrifted set of green containers on the side of the bookcase with tool hooks, and see that green pot on one of the shelves… I thrifted that for 25 cents and it’s full of shells. I just loved the colour so I thought why not! I love to use unexpected things for storage.

 

Here’s another look at my pink ceiling. Can you tell how much I love it?

 

Here’s the window beside my desk. I used the same curtain rings and finials as the other window, but these curtains are different and were thrifted at a Salvation Army Black Friday half price sale for $2. They are a petite point fabric and have a very small floral pattern that is similar to the large floral on the chenille bedspread curtain of the other window.

There’s an electric baseboard heater beneath this window so I had to shorten the curtains. Rather than cut them, I just folded them up and clipped them to the curtain rings. That’s just the way I like it… no fuss.

There are still a few projects that I’d like to do for this room, but I have to find the right pieces first. That’s OK, I’m patient. So for now that’s the whole tour… but wait, there’ s more!!  Oh no… I’m not letting myself off that easy. lol.

Here are the before and after photos. EEEK!! Now that I see the befores… it’s sooo embarassing. I can’t believe what I lived with for so many years. How did I ever create anything in that room? Take a peek… if you dare.

 

 

 

 

 

I didn’t have a real before of this window, but I did remember before the new window treatment.

 

I hope you enjoyed this tour of my new inspiration/craft room. I certainly enjoyed sharing it with you.

I’m so lucky to have a room all to myself. I think every one of us deserves to have a room, or a space, that we can call our own… that we can decorate however we want, without fear of colours, or patterns, or ideas.

The imagination is a powerful and invaluable tool, and we should use it each and every day. Whether you’re crafting, painting, drawing, decorating, cooking, gardening, writing, building, designing, singing, dancing, or whatever your creative heart desires – it’s so important to stay in touch with the artistic side that Picasso believed was born in every one of us.

I believe that too. Do you?

Thanks so much for reading!